Naming the Animals

Shopping on Friday F tells his wife
about the animals. There is a mouse
that’s made a nest in the sea chest
where he keeps the paper napkins
and rum. And a rat is chewing the feet
of the furniture. He forgets its name.
It is a rat or a mouse, he feels very
certain, and there is a roach in the
bathroom. Well, it isn’t in the bathroom,
it is at the foot of his wardrobe, but
his wardrobe is near the bathroom.
If he sees it again he will spray. There
are gecko stars upon the screen but
those are just their feet, not really
stars, and guinea pigs in the garden,
but we knew that before. On Sunday
F enters the bathroom, poison bottle
in hand. But the only thing in the bathroom
is his wife, who looks up from the mirror.
On her fingertip is a long thin whisker,
or possibly a hair.

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Marcela Sulak has authored four poetry collections, including the National Jewish Book Awards Finalist City of Skypapers (Black Lawrence Press, 2021) and the memoir, Mouth Full of Seeds (Black Lawrence Press, 2020). She's co-edited Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres (Rose Metal Press, 2016) and translated four poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew. Sulak directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University.